Tuesday, March 1, 2011

MaMaw's song

This morning I was going through a drawer, trying to find the password for the wireless in my office (never did, never will sign the phone onto the network apparently), when I came across a small card.

The handwriting on it was my mother's, who passed away on Dec. 23, 2006. She never saw me as a full-time minister. She never saw the (second) book I've written. She never saw me preach other than one time at her own church many, many years ago when I barely knew what I was doing (as opposed to now when I, uh, barely know what I'm doing).

But she knew this: "Read the book of John. It will be so easy to understand. Especially the second chapter of John. The whole book of John is so good. Mathew (cq) is another book that is easy to understand. You know I couldn't understand it if it wasn't plan, you know me. It will be easier for your because you and Beky (cq) are young. I am proud of you and here. Pray for me. Love MaMaw."

I don't know the circumstances of this note. I assume, though I could be wrong, it is written to my son, Jason, and his wife Becky, though there is the chance it is to my cousins.

But the fact is my mother, with her eighth grade education, nailed it. Whenever she wrote this note, and however it came into my possession and whomever it was written to, she nailed it.

I tell all the young converts I come in contact with, which to my surprise has not been nearly as many as I would have liked or would have thought I would come in contact with, that when you begin your journey, being it with the Gospel of John.

Easy? Well, no, not actually. This Word business to start things is actually quite intense in the first chapter.

I read the second chapter of John this morning, and I wish I could talk with my mother about it. The first half of the chapter is a description of Jesus at the Cana marriage. I wish I could tell her Mary and I were affirmed in marriage in Cana last year. I wish I could tell her I saw one of those large rocky vats where water became wine at one time. The chapter says they went on to Capernum. So did we. The chapter concludes at the Temple. So did we.

But I can't. Nor can I understand, on first glance, why that chapter would lead someone to Christ or even deeper into Christ, as I suppose this card was meant to do..

The second part of the second chapter is the strange early description of Jesus running the money changers out of the area in front of the Temple. It's strange because other accounts have this happening in the final week of Jesus' life, which actually makes more sense. If he made everyone angry just as his ministry was beginning ...

But my mother is gone and I'm left with a faded, messy card.

I ponder what she might have meant. I wonder why the second chapter.

I come to this conclusion:

Understanding John's Gospel or Matthew's or any one's is a matter of the heart more than the mind. It's a matter of choice rather than demand. It's a matter of longing rather than theology.

I choose to share chapter 3 and it's famous "God so loved the world" text, but my mother, somewhere down the road, chose to share a wedding, some water into wine and the Son of God himself saying get those cheating buzzards (my translation of the Greek) out of here.

A sharing of a marriage. A sharing of the bride (Christ's church). A sharing of who he would become..."20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” John 2: 20

It really is all there in that chapter. Miracles. Mania. Worship. Theology.

My mother, the scholar, the theologian, the grandmother who so loved.

Whodathunkit?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful message to young people. Just goes to show you our parents were not so dumb and our children will realize in time that we are not so dumb either. Love, June